<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Leave Me, But Only the Once by Myzic</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923581">Leave Me, But Only the Once</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic'>Myzic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Child Neglect, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Not Beta Read, References to Depression, Trauma, but they are there so, none of these are super explicit, we die like hyperion mayors, worth tagging for</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:28:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Benzaiten Steel is four he leaves home, and in the time he is gone, their lives have been ruined. These events are not necessarily correlated,</p><p>But Benzaiten never leaves again. </p><p>And then he dies, and at once, he will never be able to leave but has done so in every way that matters. This is not a story about dying young. (Benzaiten has never gone a day in his life without living, old.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Benzaiten Steel &amp; Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Leave Me, But Only the Once</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay. So, in the podcast, it's implied that Benzaiten also struggles with depression and I wanted to explore what that meant here, so themes of depressed thoughts are very much present.</p><p>TWs: references to child abuse, child neglect, depressed thoughts, trauma</p><p>Look after yourselves.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Benten shifts from foot to foot while he waits, trying to regain some warmth in his toes that have gone cold in his socks. Juno pouts to his side, arms crossed grumpily and Ben ignores this. </p><p>“Let’s just pick a direction and start walking,” he whines, voice stretching annoyingly high. “C’mon Ben, I bet if we leave now we can find Mick and he could help us.”</p><p>Benten doesn’t look at him as he responds, eyes fixed on the street lights lining the streets with circles of light, and they are dimmer than the ones he’s used to, barely enough for him to see the sidewalk under his feet. He imagines walking beneath them as the sky darkens and the daylight turns to pitch black around them, imagines them flickering just long enough for monsters waiting in the shadows to rip him away from the streetlight before it shudders back on.</p><p>“No,” he refuses, as he would have even without the fear of monsters in the dark tingling somewhere in his thoughts. “Ma said she would pick us up, and she’s gonna be angry if we’re not here.”</p><p>“I bet everyone else is already home,” Juno says and Benten can’t quite describe the way he says it, the tone of his voice, upset and disbelieving at the same time, but Benten knows he doesn’t like it. </p><p>“She <em> said</em>,” He states resolutely, and stares out over the steps of their El-li-men-tree (Benten spells it out syllable by syllable in his mind) and waits for the beaming twin lights to turn the corner and pull into the parking lot. He imagines them swerving over the road, lighting up each crevice and crack, wills them into existence… now. Now. Now!</p><p>Their car doesn’t turn down the road at his attempts to force it into existence, and at his side, Juno plops down onto the curb, bag falling to the ground lazily at his feet. After a second Benten joins him, letting his legs fall out beneath him and shifting to get comfortable. He tucks his hands into his pockets and balls them into fists so he can feel the tips of his fingers against his palm.</p><p>“We could still try and find our way back,” Juno repeats the words Benten feels so tired of hearing. It feels like he’s been saying the same thing for hours, even though he’s sure it hasn’t been that long. </p><p>He shakes his head and doesn’t think about how dark it’s getting. “I don’t know where home is.”</p><p>Juno doesn’t like that answer and shows it when his voice gets louder with his response. “It’s been ages since school ended. We should’ve left then, and now,” He gestures toward the dimly lit parking lot and Benten ignores the way his hands are almost the same colour as the darkness around them, ignores how it means he might be right, “it’s too dark!”</p><p>“You don’t know how to get home either,” Ben tells him and knows he’s right when Juno sighs instead of admitting he was wrong. “Ma will be here soon.”</p><p>His brother drops his cheek into his hand and then leans over far enough that he tips onto Benten’s shoulder, where his head rests heavy and warm.</p><p>“I think she forgot,” he mumbles quietly and it’s a bad feeling to know he doesn’t trust Ma the same way Benten does. The way he should. The feeling in his stomach that says his brother’s words back to him is pushed away; They make him feel bad too, but different from how he feels about the way Juno talks about Ma. </p><p>(Doubt is not a word Benzaiten Steel has learned yet. Neither is guilt, though he will grow intimate with the knowledge of them both in time.)</p><p>“She’s coming,” Benten replies because he doesn’t know how else he should.</p><p>Eventually, their car will turn the long-awaited road before them and pull into the parking lot, though by then he won’t be able to warm any of his fingers or toes and he will be able to feel Juno shivering through his own jacket even as they are huddled against each other on the curb. It will be so dark he can only just make out the street beneath his feet and he won’t be able to see Juno’s face at all until it is blinking tiredly in the bright lights of Ma’s car.</p><p>Ma scoops him up and she’s so warm he buries his face into her puffy coat while she croons to him, holding Juno’s wrist and setting them both inside the car. “I am so sorry, my little monsters. You know things have been hard on me, right? We’re all learning to adjust.”</p><p>He agrees with a relieved hum and Juno mumbles something that could be an agreement. </p><p>“It’s really difficult for Mama right now, ever since…” She gets quieter and he can feel Juno reaching for his hand, which he shakily takes back, the cold stopping his fingers from staying still. Ma takes a deep breath and continues, “I just had to stay behind today, and I got a little distracted okay, babies? It won’t happen again.”</p><p>He sneezes for a week after, and his head is all foggy with cotton for a bit too, but Benten doesn’t really care, because he was <em> right</em>. She came for them. </p><hr/><p>Sweat drips down his forearms and he mops at his forehead a bit more before sliding the towel down his arms as well. It grounds him, plants him where he is in the backroom of the Oldtown studio stage, heels sore on the ground instead of flying through the air, his entire body conducting electricity and igniting his nerves while the overhead lights blind him. Benten takes a deep breath and the scent of dust and slight mildew grounds him too.</p><p>There are two others in here doing the same, his partners dressed in pale gowns of gossamer blue, long banners of silky fabric hanging between their legs. The rest of the people here are standing in lines behind black curtains, waiting for the act on stage to be finished so they can perform. </p><p>Benten waves goodbye to his partners and grabs a pair of black sweatpants and white tee he’d shoved behind a bin of props, slides them on, and replaces his dress with the shirt before wrapping it up into a ball in his hands. If he ran quick enough he could make it into the seat next to Juno before these guys were on stage.</p><p>He starts to pass by the line, but there’s a kid, maybe two years younger than him, near hyperventilating at the end of it and their eyes are wide with fear. The ones ahead of them don’t look back, either out of fear that doing so will increase their own nerves, or because they are simply too caught up in preparing mentally.</p><p>Benten puts a hand on their shoulder, clad in a dark black shirt, as he passes and they whip their head up at him, face like a spooked animal.</p><p>“Hey,” He greets, “don’t forget to breathe, okay?” They nod and breathe faster, “Woah, woah, slower than that. Here, look at me.” </p><p>Benzaiten takes a deep breath, slow and exaggerated, then a few more, and waits as the kid does the same. After a breath or two, he pops his eyes wide and on the exhale, turns his head, and blows into their face like a rotating fan. They giggle, surprised, and distracted from their nerves, and he pats their shoulder before letting go.</p><p>“Break a leg,” he says and the line in front of them starts to move forward. </p><p>“Thank you,” they tell him with a quick smile and file onto the stage with their class. </p><p>He ducks into a hallway that leads to the front of the building instead of housing the other performers waiting their turn, and the white halls of it are blinding after the semi-darkness of backstage. </p><p>A man in a clean pressed suit is turning his head in the halls. Looking for someone. Benten goes to scoot past him, unable to help the way his eyes trail over the cuffs of his jacket, clearly tailored to fit, how his pant sleeves haven’t been hemmed by amateur hands. His shoes shine brightly, not a single scuff on them he can see. One of the types from central Hyperion, probably worked in one of the big skyscrapers, or even more likely, the entertainment industry, especially with the type of clothes he could apparently afford.</p><p>Benzaiten walks by him with a smile he keeps in his pocket for instances like this. “Hey.”</p><p>“Hello, you don’t happen to be one of the performers do you?” His returning grin is disarming, charming and Benzaiten thinks, <em> entertainment. Definitely</em>.</p><p>“I am,” He wonders <em>why </em>he’s back here rather than <em>how</em>, because there’s barely enough money to pay the instructors, nevermind having anyone to make sure the backstage areas were clear. “Just got off stage.”</p><p>“Yeah, the swirly one with the blue dress. Gotta say, kid, you’re real light on your feet.” He holds his hand out for a handshake and Ben takes it, because what else is he supposed to do, and smiles politely. “I’m Farley.”</p><p>“Benzaiten, and thanks, but it’s really my partners that are making me light on my feet,” Benten jokes about the lifts because he has the feeling this man is the kind of person who appreciates things like that. He’s rewarded for his effort with a chuckle that isn’t nearly as forced as it should be given the weakness of his joke.</p><p>“Too modest,” And he thinks of flipping his hand dismissively, smiling the way he sees people do on the streams. The thought makes him want to giggle, but he knows it would come out nervous. “Your partners were great, but you were pretty magnificent up there on the stage yourself. You’ve got some talent in your bones, I can tell.”</p><p>“Right,” He accepts the compliment with grace, and stares over the man’s shoulder for a second, wondering if there might be another person to wander down it and force them to split apart, standing in the middle of the hall as they are. No such luck.</p><p>“Do you think you’ll go into dancing?” He says and Ben’s attention is drawn back toward him. “Professionally, I mean.”</p><p>“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Benten answers honestly, because he can’t. </p><p>His grades are too low for him to pursue anything that might get him an academic scholarship— unlike Juno, who could probably do anything he wanted— which is the only way he would ever be able to attend post-secondary. But more than that, he can’t imagine ever wanting to do anything else. Not when it feels like every day, more and more, the only times when he’s alive is when he’s spinning through the air, or with his leg lifted and sweat dripping down his back. Benzaiten Steel works very hard to stay grounded to the earth when all he wants to do is never put his feet on it again.</p><p>(Benzaiten loves life and being alive, but there is a calmness in non-being that croons in the back of his head because he is tired, and it feels like he has been tired since the day he was born. Its whispers sing sweetly to him in class through the windows, and with glass shards raining above his ducked head at home.</p><p>Then, he’ll stand on stage in clothes nicer than any in his closet, and his muscles will strain until they sheen with sweat, but he will feel wonderfully, beautifully alive— and there won’t be a single drop of fatigue or tiredness turning the marrow in his bones to liquid lead.)</p><p>“I’d like to make you an offer, then,” Farley says like this is a thing that happens everyday. “There’s a school upstate, and I think you could really flourish there. I would sponsor you, and the school would provide boarding, food, and all you would need to do is keep your grades up.” He shrugs. “Make me proud. That kind of thing.” </p><p>There is Benzaiten Steel, standing in the back of a run-down studio five blocks from his apartment. He can feel the turn of the planet, which seems like it has begun to spin so fast he will be ripped off its tiny surface. He can see a future ahead of him, one with opportunity and full stomachs, with less screaming and a career, stable. And he doesn’t know how to feel about it other than so scared he is still as the cold depths of space.</p><p>There is Sarah Steel, five blocks away instead of watching him dance, doing something in their too-small apartment. Drinking maybe. Probably. He immediately admonishes himself for the thought, more of a bone-deep disappointment than any coherent sentence. It is a familiar line of thought, well-trodden and quick to zip through him, like an electric bolt of shame. Ma always looks tired and life has been hard to her, hard enough that it can make her cold sometimes, but that’s what people are like when they’re dealt too many bad hands. And he can’t exactly judge them for forces outside of their control, can he?</p><p>Juno sits in the audience, likely wondering where his brother is after being off-stage the performance, or what the hell he’s doing instead of watching with him like he’d said. And he pretends for a second that he is far away from Oldtown, or at least far enough that he can only hear the two of them screaming at each other in his head rather than from the kitchen. Far enough away that he can’t do anything to stop them. </p><p>And Benten sucks in a breath, head spinning from a thousand different thoughts and possibilities he knows he’ll never let see the light of day, and offers the man an apologetic smile. His face drops as Ben answers, and a part of him is disappointed he will never get to see the future this man offered.</p><p>“Sorry,” And the rest of their conversation could end with that one word, for Farley knows his answer. He can see the resignation on his face. “I’m more interested in staying in Oldtown, work my way up, you know?”</p><p>He shakes his head disbelievingly, and Benzaiten hopes he asks someone else to turn into his poster child. Any of the other dancers would probably trip over themselves to say yes a thousand times.</p><p>“Alright. Didn’t expect that to be honest, but it’s my own fault for springing it on you,” He lifts his eyebrows, “Sure you won’t reconsider?”</p><p>It’s tempting… “Certain.”...so he smiles to fool himself into believing he knows what he wants. It almost works.</p><p>“Alright, then have a nice day,” Farley starts to walk down the hall, out of his life, waving a hand lightly as he goes. “For someone so light on their feet, you sure got them cemented down to this place. Can’t imagine why,” he mutters.</p><p>“Right, and thank you for the offer. Very generous.” it doesn’t look like he’s waiting for much of a response, so Benten doesn’t give one. “I’ll see you around.” He quietly hopes his words are a lie.</p><p>He hurries down the hall, eager to leave the bright hallway lights and the conversation behind him. Eager to forget it happened at all. He thinks of Juno, grumbling to himself in the dark about his lack of presence, and feels a little surer.</p><p>Benten almost topples into another dancer on his way to the audience and hastily apologizes. He scrambles in the dark for his brother, searching over the heads of observers before a hand waves at him from one of the seats in the middle-front of the audience. He slides into the open seat beside his brother, relishing in the furry jacket wrapped around it and pulling it on gratefully.</p><p>“Where were you?” He's sure his brother is scowling in the low lighting, features twisting into a mask that separates the two of them further.</p><p>“Powderin’ my nose,” Benten whispers in a Voice, and he feels a jab in his side, unhesitant and brutal. He chokes down his laughter and grins, and he can tell that Juno’s mirrors this in the dark too.</p><p>Sitting here, eyes turned toward the stage and his brother warm at his side, he is suddenly far more certain than in the hallway. There’s far too much for him in Oldtown, for him to give it up so easily.</p><p>He’s right where he needs to be. </p><p>(Benzaiten will turn down three more offers like this by the time he’s nineteen. Each time, it will sound more certain, and by then he will have convinced himself almost entirely that he is as confident as his refusals.</p><p>By then, he will be set to take over the Oldtown Studio and he will never be more certain that he made the right decisions. Benten will be able to give more opportunity than was ever in store for him.</p><p>This day never comes.)</p><hr/><p>There are a lot of differences you could name between Benten and his brother. If you were being obvious about it, you could say something about the scar on Juno’s nose, or the way Benten took the time to put his hair into twists. </p><p>But Benten knows the difference lies in the average amount of whining you would hear from them. Uncharitable, but not untrue.</p><p>Like now, as Juno wrinkles his nose at cupboards squealing, and he makes another displeased noise as he pulls out the measuring cup, only to find it’s chipped. “Benten, really? What’s a lady gotta do to make some cookie dough around here?”</p><p>“Well, it won’t bother you for much longer,” he says with a bit more force than he’d intended and he can see Juno blink, surprised. </p><p>“What?”  Juno asks. “Yeah, no, we can just buy a new—”</p><p>“It’s not like you’ll be around.” Juno is taken back for all of a second, and then Benzaiten can see his shoulders come up, hackles raising as they always, always did, and he knows a part of him will miss that too. </p><p>“I thought you were okay with that,” Juno snaps, all righteous justice. “I would’ve headed out sooner if I’d known you were gonna be so passive-aggressive about it.”</p><p>“Well, why didn’t you?” He hates himself for asking. Juno has been waiting for this— no, not waiting— working for this, and Benten has been there to see the calluses, to press ice against the bruises on his palm where the recoil of a blaster left its ink-blue marks so he could write his notes at school the next day. Hyperion means freedom to Juno, but Oldtown has only ever been a cage to him. Not like Ben.</p><p>“If I could’ve gotten out of this—” He is ready to flinch back at Juno’s swearing, shield himself from the bite he turns against their home, the only one he can remember ever having, but it doesn’t come, and that surprises him more. “—place sooner, I would have.” </p><p>Juno’s gaze is part rage, but the rest is all betrayal, and it stings to have his eyes burn against him like that. Benzaiten ignores the ache in his hollow chest and presses his lips together hard enough to not feel the burning in the back of his eyes. For god’s sake, Mick and Sasha don’t even know about the move yet.</p><p>When he told Ma, Benten had been pretty sure their screaming had woken up the entire complex. Alright, so he has some idea of why he hasn’t told the others. </p><p>Because for all of Juno’s mutterings and angry words that she hasn’t been much of a mother to them at all— this is an argument they’ve had too many times, but it still whips Benten’s anger into a bigger flame— it can’t change the fact that Sarah is still his mother. And they can’t escape each other, so Juno’s voice had been raspy from yelling the next day.</p><p>Why tell anyone anything if that’s how they’re going to react?</p><p>For a second, Benzaiten wishes he didn’t know his brother so well. It might make it easier to be mad at him for leaving them. He regrets the thought. Soon, he will miss knowing Juno. When he is gone, and though he will be back, it will never be the same again.</p><p>“If you hate it so much, then go somewhere else,” He lifts his eyebrows and throws up his hands, and with as much bite as he can muster, says, “No one’s keeping you here.” </p><p>“You have fun moping around with your self-pity,” It hurts for just a second, “it’s not my fault you’re choosing to stay stuck here.” And he hits the wrong mark. Benten wants to stay, and here he’ll have more than Juno will, without him, and without Ma. The door closes tightly behind him, but he doesn’t slam it (they are both too wary of slammed doors to ever mirror the action themselves) and then all that’s left is the displaced whoosh of air he leaves and Benzaiten, alone.</p><p><em> You have spent so long convincing yourself you’re the glue of this home </em> , he thinks to himself, <em> that you have forgotten you’re a noose </em>. Juno’s parting remark goes bitter down his throat and Benzaiten takes a chair roughly at the kitchen table.</p><p>He presses his face to his hands, realizes that the action makes him feel even more pitiful, and scowls at them ridiculously. And then he is empty of the burn of anger in his hands like the match has burnt out and all he has left are scorched fingertips and black ash on his fingernails. The anger deserts him, and then he’s just sad and frustrated that there’s nothing he could possibly do to make it better, to lift himself up from the tar that pulls his head beneath its endless waves until he can’t tell the difference between illumination and pitch-black nothing. </p><p>Juno will always leave, and nothing he could say would make him stay. He doesn’t even want Juno to stay, because he knows if he does, his brother might just buckle under the weight of being trapped here. It would be fine, if he could just convince himself that Juno is leaving, rather than that Juno is leaving <em>him </em>.</p><p>Everything is changing, he’s moving forward with his life too, for nothing can stop the marching of time, not even Benzaiten’s own struggles against it, and he is such a hypocrite. </p><p>Starting in two weeks, in the time Juno will be gone, he’s going to start teaching at the Oldtown Academy of the Arts full-time, and who is he going to be? Who is he going to be without a brother, without the dull repetition of living the same day, and having it drag at his heels? Even though he hated it, at least it was familiar. At least he always knew what the next day had in store, and if that day had two bruised ribs and a black eye, then at least they would have each other.</p><p>Now, he will have himself, and that will have to be enough. Benzaiten pushes away the thoughts that tell him he has never been enough because they can’t be true. He can’t afford for them to be true. Not anymore.</p><hr/><p>“So I’ll meet you at the Pour N’ Floor Thursday, alright?” He grins into the comms because it feels so good to hear Juno’s voice again, even if it is warped and ever so slightly alien through his comms. He misses hearing the rough tenor accompanying his brother’s tone instead of the telltale hiss and crackle of their outdated models. “And Super-Steel, if you’re late, I will drive to your apartment and turn every single pair of jeans you own into jorts.”</p><p>“That is by far the worst threat I’ve gotten working on the force,” Juno says and he sounds lighter, tired, but good. “Really gonna force me to deal with high school bullshit on the new job? They’ll beat the shit out of me on the first day.”</p><p>“Maybe I’ll convince Mick to fill your pockets with free samples of his new venture idea.” He waits.</p><p>“What is it now?”</p><p>“Miniaturized frog enclosements,” he relishes the small disgusted noise from the other side of the line. “Raise ‘em on the go! At work! As they roast in your pockets, and that shit can’t be laundered!” Benten crows the rest, slightly bitter that Juno hasn’t been around to play test subject like him.</p><p>“Right, don’t forget to tell Mick it’s Thursday, Hyperion Standard Time, or he’s gonna show up three Tuesdays from now or something.”</p><p>“Is he still on that stupid calendar thing?”</p><p>“You would know better than me. You see him more often.” The push and pull of their words comes to a lull, now that all comfortable subjects are out of the way, and the unspoken valleys between them start to close in. He waits for the same question he’s received almost every single time they’ve spoken in the last year.</p><p>“Benten…” Ben breathes in preparation as the familiar timbres of Juno’s voice turn pleading. “Why don’t you move in with me? There’s enough room for both of us in my apartment.”</p><p>He shoves aside the feeling in his chest that resonates with his brother’s pleading tone. “C’mon, you don’t want to share a room with me again, Juno.” Benzaiten misses him so much that it feels like every word he speaks is dripping with doubt, and he hopes Juno can’t hear it through the comms, that the fuzzy static layering him will also hide his deception.</p><p>“I’d rather you live with me than her.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, you are not an acceptable applicant for a custody battle, Mr. Steel,” He breaks out his small-child voice, only a little politer and sweeter than his usual one. “In fact, looking at the records I have here, it doesn’t appear there are any possible applicants who might be eligible for that position.”</p><p>A small frustrated noise Benten enjoys for the moment it lasts— it’s been ages since he’s seen Juno to draw it out of him. “I have a car now, so you could still get to the studio to keep teaching. Hell!” His voice, which is high enough in person, raises an octave over the pitchy whine of the call, “I don’t even care if you move in with me, so long as you get yourself out of there.”</p><p>“Mmm, but I’ve got ten creds on the species of termites eating through the walls with Mrs. Formiday next door. She says they’re poisonous, but with that one stain on the living room ceiling, you know the brown, blob-shaped one, I’m putting my money on well-lubricated at the very least.” Benzaiten deflects and is glad for the moment that he can’t see Juno’s annoyance through the voice call.</p><p>“Fine.” He grimaces at the sharp tone, letting himself squint disapprovingly now that Juno can’t make a face in response. “Why do you—” A stiff inhale, a pained breath outward and now he feels bad. This is supposed to be a celebration of Juno’s accomplishments, not a rehashing of an argument they could both recite asleep. “You know what? I’ll see you at the Pour N’ Floor.”</p><p>“Right, and Juno? Before you go?”</p><p>“What,” Juno responds flatly, and this wasn’t how he’d meant the conversation to go. The first time he gets to talk to his brother in a month, and they argue.</p><p>“Just proud of you,” Benzaiten hopes that being proud of his brother is enough to make up for selfishly wanting him here. He can’t actually remember ever <em>not </em>being proud of Juno, and this at least is familiar, is the same, and he knows it is a feeling that will never fade. There is no universe or time in which he is not proud of Juno Steel, for being better than him, for trying so hard that he blazes with it and it is impossible not to see.</p><p>He does what he needs to survive, and if surviving means escaping, then Benzaiten can be proud of him for that too.</p><p>(Benzaiten realizes that as the world pulls his brother down, he is dragged to the ground as well. It’s only that Juno is the one that tries, hard enough that his own efforts are eclipsed to himself. It is not admirable to stand in the mud.</p><p>He does not yet know that five feet above the ground is a mountain he has become strong for climbing.)</p><p>There’s a pause on the other side— his brother playing catch-up from hopping to two such different emotional extremes. </p><p>Juno responds softly enough to be a whisper. “Thanks.”</p><hr/><p>When Benzaiten Steel is four, Ma leaves her office door unlocked, and from behind the door frame, its opened latch looks like an adventure waiting to happen. </p><p>“No, we can’t go in there— we can’t, or Ma’s gonna—” Juno tugs at his arm but he pulls it loose. “She’ll be mad, and I don’t wanna— don’t wanna be in trouble.”</p><p>“But What’s that?” Benten pulls his sleeve from Juno’s clenched fingers, peeling away each one carefully so he’ll have no reason to cry about it. “I wanna see it, leggo, Juno!” He looks at the big rectangle thing in Ma’s office, like the TV, but bigger, and in front of it is a little metal sheet with a bunch of buttons he wants to press <em>so bad</em>.</p><p>When he pulls himself loose from Juno, he clambers up the chair, has to put his hands on the seat, and pushes himself up onto the cushion. It wobbles and turns beneath his hands, and Benten giggles as he spins in a circle on it. He puts a hand on the table and twirls himself around, blinking at Juno standing past the entrance into the office, blurred and shaky as he spins and spins and spins</p><p>There is a crashing as he turns and it tingles in his ears. It’s the sound of wind chimes, but too loud and too much all at once, and Benten sticks a hand out to stop his swirling, yelping when his hand hits against the wooden desk.</p><p>His vision keeps on spinning even as he looks at Juno’s horrified face and the shards of glass on the floor which swim like tiny beads of light, amber fireflies that steady and grow still the longer he sits there. Benten can feel his heart start hopping in his chest and carefully puts his feet down on the floor.</p><p>“I told you not to,” his brother announces, or at least that’s what Benten thinks it sounds like at first. “We’re gonna be in so much trouble.” Juno’s voice wobbles with tears, and Ben runs to his side, hopping around the sparkly floor, and he can feel his socks getting sticky with the gross, stinky liquid.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he comforts, mostly to stop him from crying, “It’s okay, I’ll get Ma and tell her what happened, and then she won’t be mad.” Benten reaches down and grabs something poky from his sock, dropping it to the floor with a soft plink, and pats Juno’s arm.</p><p>If anything that makes Juno look closer to tears, and he stares widely and his nose darkens with the pinkish shine of his eyes. “No,” he tells him, “you can’t find her, or Ma will be upset. I don’t know where she is.”</p><p>Benten doesn’t look at the mess he made and presses his lips together real hard because he can’t cry, not if Juno’s gonna. They can’t both be crying, so he tries really really hard not to. Instead, he marches past his brother and toward the door, sticking his feet in his shoes and frowning at how empty and loose they feel. He doesn’t know how to tie the strings on them yet so he puts them on like that anyway.</p><p>“She’s at work,” Benten declares, and opens the door, shivering at the cold wind that makes the little hairs on his arms go straight. From what he can see of the halls outside their home, it’s very big, but he swallows and tells himself that he can be brave because he’s heard Ma saying he is before, so it must be true.</p><p>“Where’s work?” Juno asks, and the grip on his sleeve is so tight, it crumples and wrinkles the fabric. “Benten,” Ben yanks his arm out and races outside because he can hear Juno starting to cry again and the faster Ma fixes things the sooner he’ll stop. “No, don’t go!”</p><p>He runs down the hall past their door and jumps down the stairs unsteadily, far more clumsily than he does when he’s holding Ma’s hand. “Come back!” Benten can still hear Juno’s voice and he’s really upset.</p><p>When he makes it to the bottom of the stairway, there is the sidewalk in front of him, and the road and he remembers that he’s never been outside without Ma or Juno. Benten stands alone in the world for the very first time. He trembles because he forgot to put on a jacket and because he is scared.</p><p>But Juno is scared too, so he walks around the side of the building, back past the alleyway where the big metal garbage bins are. Benten uses one hand to plug his nose as he walks by them, turning his head back and forth as he runs. Ma didn’t work very far from here, so it probably didn’t take long for her to get back either. She was probably somewhere around here.</p><p>Benten stays beside the outer walls of their apartment building and keeps running. Every so often his feet hurt, but he figures it’s because he’s been looking for a while.</p><p>Ben’s been running for a really long time now, so he’s probably close. He thinks of things he hasn’t seen before that he can tell Ma and Juno about when he gets back, which reminds him he’s looking for Ma and then he sits down against the back of the complex’s rough grey walls.</p><p><em> It’s easier to stay in one place so people can find you</em>, he remembers, and Benten’s been looking for Ma for a while. It would be nice if it could be her turn now, and she could just come to him.</p><p>The grass is wet against his butt, and he sits there forever, but the more he sits there, the more his hands get sweaty and his toes are still sticky, but they’re starting to get cold too. Ben’s heart hops like a rabbit in his chest, and what if she never comes back? What if Ma’s gone forever or never finds him, or she comes back and gets angry enough at his mess that she doesn’t want him anymore?</p><p>He sniffles distractedly, and pulls up his knees, hugging them, and notices the ends of his sleeves are damp from where he set them down in the grass. It’s a gross feeling and Benten can feel hot tears leaking out the side of his eyes, which is bad because he <em>told </em>himself he wasn’t going to cry, and the thought makes him cry harder. </p><p>So, he sits there and waits for an eternity, and he cries for an eternity, but he keeps getting frustrated because whenever Benten decides he wants to get up and keep looking, he thinks about the smelly liquid, and the glass, like stars against the dark, wooden floor. These things bring another wave of tears, especially when he thinks about how mad Ma’s gonna be. </p><p>Benten liked it better when he was running he decides, so he gets up and starts running again, focusing on the way his feet feel when they hit the sidewalk on the front of the building, and wobble when he runs over the grass in the back. He waves at someone he knows coming down the stairs, and he has friendly eyes and a familiar smile, but Ben doesn’t remember his name, so he just waves instead of saying hi.</p><p>At some point, he decides he’s been looking for too long in one area. What if she’s on one of the floors near their apartment? Benten runs up the stairs, skipping them three at a time, which he can do if he makes his steps super big. When he knocks on the door to their apartment, Juno tackles him in a hug, and he hugs back, enjoying the warmth of his brother’s thin arms and the way he isn’t crying.</p><p>(Sarah Steel will come back hours later, and she will be far too occupied at the upheaval of her life’s work to pay attention to the slices between Benzaitne’s toes from running with dust-grain glass stuck in his socks, and eventually, when those heal, all that will be left are his memories, before those fade as well.</p><p>The only one who will remember is the thief who thinks himself saviour, and Benten’s cheerful wave will seem faded against the backdrop of his guilt.)</p><hr/><p>When he hoists himself over the ledge of the roof, his arms feel like jelly by the time his back rests on the concrete and he’s staring at the night sky, hot breath puffing clouds of vapour. Benzaiten rests there for a moment before he can feel the steady thrum of his pulse quiet as it’s overcome by the panting of his friends still working to push themselves up.</p><p>Sasha is sitting on the ledge, legs dangling over the side, face turned toward the dome above them. She looks entirely unbothered by the climb up there and their still struggling friends below.</p><p>“Geez. Help a pal out, won’t you, Benten?” A hand reaches over the side, and he grasps it, feeling how the fingers dwarf his own as they wrap around his hand. Benten heaves and with a huff, Mick collapses onto the roof, joining him, Sasha, and Juno, who’s sprawled out, face-down on the ground, arms spread in front of him and legs still dangling over the side of the building. “Thanks,” he wheezes, and Benten gives him a pat.</p><p>“No problem.” </p><p>He walks over to Juno who turns his face from the ground to look up at him and plucks the plastic bag full of stolen ammunition from his limp fingertips, abandoning him to the floor.</p><p>Juno presumably pushes himself up from the cement, grumbling something about traitorous siblings, and it being <em> his </em> birthday too. Benten pulls Mick to his feet to the sound of louder and even more pointed mutterings and rolls his eyes before handing Mick the bag.</p><p>“You’re the one with the ammunition expert uncle,” he sighs, “just be careful.”</p><p>“Careful is my middle name,” Mick gasps. “I mean, it’s not, it’s Bartholomew, but there’s no way any of us are gonna get hurt so long as I know my best buds are up here with me.”</p><p>“Alright, uh, pick a good spot, then,” Benten agrees and sits beside Sasha on the roof ledge. It’s his birthday, he can be excused for not doing the heavy lifting on this one.</p><p>He’s seventeen now, and the number is at once too small and too big for it to be his to claim. Benzaiten thinks of Ma at home, drinking something thick and easy to get drunk on, his grades, too low even with Juno’s help for him to consider getting a career he doesn’t want. He feels his years slope down the curve of his shoulders, thinks of the ones ahead of him he has yet to bear the weight of, and imagines closing his eyes and evaporating in fine wisps of white smoke. When Benten opens them, he is still there and it is a revelation and a disappointment at the same time.</p><p>Sasha turns her gaze from the stars to glance at him. “Happy Birthday,” she congratulates. “And Happy Birthday for next year while I’m at it. Don’t know if we’re gonna be able to do stuff like this anymore.” Her thoughts are running down the same tracks as his, past the flickering broken lights of Oldtown High School, to the years after, but he’s sure in her mind, they are crystalline to his sewer pipes of frothing muck.</p><p>It isn’t actually their birthday, but there’s a new film by Northstar premiering today that happened to fall close enough for him and Juno to get out of the house while they knew Ma would be pulling out her stash. She was drunk when they left, enough that she wouldn’t notice their absence by the time she came back around tomorrow morning.</p><p>“We’ll see each other again.” He says and believes this is the truth when he does. </p><p>“Yeah.” Sasha agrees and neither of them voices the fact that nothing will be the same.</p><p>(This is not how Sasha Wire will remember Benzaiten. To her, he will always be vibrant and energetic enough to fill up a room with his presence, with a bright grin and a heart lighter than his feet. Not like this, quiet and contemplative as he so rarely shows.</p><p>But this is how Benzaiten will know the Sasha of his memories. Looking forward, always forward, face turned to the stars with wide-open eyes, no trace of fear or doubt, and she will be untouchable for it.)</p><p>A thump to his left has his brother joining them. Then, there are hands on Benten’s shoulders, brushing over his thick coat long enough that he can hold on the wall’s side as Juno tries to push him off. For a moment, he hitches over precariously, before setting himself back down and grinning at the tight look around his brother’s eyes.</p><p>“Almost got me with that one,” Benten snorts.</p><p>“Sure,” Juno agrees easily, instead of trying to shove him off again like he would on any other day. “Are we just gonna let Mick set off the fireworks by himself?”</p><p>“He’s going to kill himself,” Sasha chimes in and looks wistfully over her shoulder at Mick setting them up some feet away, obviously reluctant to get up despite her words.</p><p>“Mick can do it.” Benten defends, “He probably knows more about them than we do at the least.”</p><p>“Right, but he’s <em> Mick </em>,” Juno says it like an explanation, and really, it is.</p><p>They all turn their heads backward at him, and Mick circles some kind of wire frame with a tall cylindrical tube set inside of it. He waves at them as he sees them looking and gives a thumbs up, which isn’t as comforting as it could be given the rocket's odd angle. Benzaiten is pretty sure it’s supposed to be perpendicular to the ground, but… it’s probably fine.</p><p>“Last time he was near chemicals, he blew up half the senior science room,” Sasha says faintly, undermining his own reassurances.</p><p>“I thought that was one of the windows,” Benten mutters, “the one that got mixed up with weapons manufacturing glass?”</p><p>Juno shrugs, and he wishes could feel the same casual confidence present in that single motion. “Sometimes, that’s just a hazard of chem.”</p><p>“We were taking Biology, Juno.” </p><p>Benzaiten is watching the two of them on either side of him, and they’re looking over him at each other. They’re doing that thing again, where they both pick a side and argue it until one of them is yelling, or Ben’s pulling them apart, and it looks like Juno has set himself on Mick’s side this time— an unusual choice for his brother. </p><p>Then, something hot goes whizzing past the top of his head, and for a second, a scorching blast crawls up Benzaiten’s back that stings where it buzzes on the soft flesh around his unprotected neck. He blinks and when he opens his eyes, his vision is a wash of white that fades into neon orange, followed by a crack that rings in his eardrums. </p><p>A little, squeaky scream comes from his left, but Benten looks to Sasha first, whose face is pale with surprise, mouth open as she blinks away the sparks he can still feel blooming in his vision across the dark canvas of the sky. “Let’s go check on Mick.” Benten gets to his feet shakily.</p><p>They fix Mick’s framework, righting the stand so it doesn’t blast out actual rockets near their heads, and Benten waves off his sheepish apologies. Juno grabs him by the lapels and shakes him angrily for a bit and Sasha crosses her arms and looks at Mick down her nose with piercing, angry eyes that said she wouldn’t be the one to stop him. He figures the force of their loud disapproval is enough and doesn’t take his own strip of flesh for nearly making him jump off the side of the building.</p><p>His hands start to shiver in the winter’s air and Benten can see Juno fumbling with the next firework. </p><p>As another one flies above their heads he yells to Juno above the sparks. “Happy Birthday, Super-Steel!”</p><p>Juno doesn’t yell it back, but he sees him mouthing the words as sparks drift through the sky and feels for a moment that the future can’t be all that bad if he has this. He’ll still have Juno, and Benzaiten will be there for his brother, as long as he lets him.</p><p>They flame in brilliant bursts overtop their heads, cracking loudly as gunshots and he sees Sasha wince in the corner of his eye, and quietly apologizes to Oldtown for how fresh scars of the War might be torn tonight. But the aftertaste of guilt doesn’t last as the arcing flashes of light blaze across his eyes, leaving green afterimages patterned dizzily behind them.</p><p>In a year from now, they’ll be graduating, and in another, he’ll be gone, but for now, all that Benzaiten can see of the future is the brightness of his friends’ grins, excited and far brighter than the fire of their stolen flames.</p><p>The fireworks spark through the air, stars soaring as they return to the sky, and he smiles too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>...this was supposed to be half the size it is. </p><p>Trying to write from Benzaiten's POV was. I struggled with it a bit, and I hope I did him justice here. Also, angstangstangstangstangst(fluff)angst</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>